Lights off, Door closed
by JustVilda Potter
Summary: A collection of oneshots, all in the same genre: Horror. Of course they're all about Nicky, Ricky, Dicky and Dawn. Some focus on all of them, while some are more centric on one quad. These oneshots will either be designed to creep you out or to make you think and feel something. Get ready to look over your shoulder. Turn the lights off, close the door, and get ready to feel scared!
1. You're My Best Friend

**Hiya, and welcome to this collection of oneshots in the genre: Horror.**

**I named this collection _Lights off, Door closed_**** because I find that to be the scariest setting to read horror in. It gives you more thrill, and you get more scared. But of course, if you want to, you can read this as if it was called _Lights on, Door open_, I don't mind.**

* * *

**You're my best ****friend**

**Takes place: Season 2**

**Nicky-centric**

* * *

When the Harper quadruplets were five, their aunt Juliette would visit them only once every month. She was Tom's older sister, and loved meeting her niece and nephews, and they loved meeting her. They thought she was so fun to hang around, and she easily had fun playing the quads' games.

She couldn't do that often though, since she lived far away, and worked a lot. Every time she visited though, she would bring a gift for all of them. When it was their birthday month she would even bring four presents, one for each quad.

The quads always loved these presents. They always fit so perfectly for each one of them. There was no present that would ever beat what they got in July when they were five though.

Juliette arrived on the 25th, and left two days later. They played and had fun all the way until she had to leave on July 27th. That's when she gave them a stuffed bear. It didn't look so particular compared to any other teddy bear. Light brown fluff, adorable big eyes, and holding a heart which said '_best friend_'. None of those things were the cause of the quads extreme love for just this stuffed animal though.

They loved it because of what happened if you pressed the toy's tummy. In a cute little voice, it would say: "_You're my best friend_". The quads went crazy over this feature, and pressed and hugged the bear all the time. Sometimes they would even fight over who would get to make it speak next. They loved that plush toy.

That was of course, until Dicky dropped it down the stairs.

They had rushed down after it, trying to save their beloved toy. When they did catch it at the base of the stairs, no visible damage was taken. It still looked adorable as ever, to the quads' relief. Then Dawn tried to push the tummy, to make it say it's happy phrase. But it didn't. The bear didn't make a sound, no matter how hard any of them pushed or hugged. So they started doing anything in their power to make it talk. Bang it on the table, drop it down the stairs, hit it with other toys, _anything_. But nothing worked

The stuffed bear had said its last words.

Sadly, the quads stopped playing with it then. When Anne noticed this, she put it away in a box of old toys in the cleaning cupboard under the stairs. It had been there ever since. Three years later, when the quads were eight, Juliette was involved in a serious car crash. It broke about seventy percent of her bones, and damaged a lot of her insides too. She died later the same day.

* * *

**Present ****time**

The quads basically ran home from where they got off the school bus. They had to get home as fast as they could, as some relatives were at their house. Tom didn't only have Juliette, he had a little sister too; Addison.

Addison had three kids who were four, nine and thirteen. Since the quads were twelve, those were some perfect ages.

Dawn swung the door open, and saw Elise, Luke and Claire sitting on the couch. They looked up when they heard the door slam into the wall next to it, and immediately smiled.

"Quads!" Elise, the thirteen year old celebrated as she stood up.

Dawn and her ran into a hug with each other, while the boy quads fist bumped and high fived Luke. Claire was too little to even care, and just stuck to Addison. Dawn and Elise let go of each other.

"Oh my gosh, Dawn. We've got so much fun planned!" Elise smiled with her whole face as she started rambling about what they had planned.

They were sleeping over for the whole weekend, going to the water park, eating out, and all these other fun things. Slowly as they talked, the six oldest children started walking up the stairs. Ricky fell behind a little, but that was just because he ran over and got Claire with them. They all gathered in the Icky's room.

"So what do we do first?" Elise jumped onto Dicky's bed.

Luke immediately lit up.

"I know! We can play teams hide and seek."

Everyone thought about it for a second.

"Works for me," Ricky shrugged.

Nicky and Dicky looked at each other and nodded, while Dawn and Elise excitedly said yes.

"Who's the seeker?" Dicky asked.

"Me!" Dawn excitedly raised her hand.

She wasn't a that good hider, so she preferred seeking.

"Pair up, people."

"I'll take Claire," Ricky smiled, looking like he did it because he cared about her so much. He did care about her, but that wasn't the whole story here. Claire was so little so she could fit in small spaces.

"I want Dicky."

"I want Luke."

The two boys looked at each other, and put their elbows on each others shoulder.

Elise looked at Nicky.

"Then I guess I'm with you, Nick."

Nicky nodded, and they took a step closer to each other.

"I'm gonna take you all down," Dawn looked at the others with a confident glint in her eye, and her arms crossed.

She turned around and walked over to the wall, where she turned again.

"Now off with you!" she turned her head to the wall, and covered her eyes.

"One! Two! Three!..."

The three teams ran out of the room, and off in different directions. Ricky & Claire stayed on the second floor, while Nicky & Elise and Dicky & Luke ran down the stairs. Dicky and Luke disappeared away into the kitchen, leaving Nicky and Elise alone in the living room.

"Okay Nick, where are all the hiding places?" Elise looked around her

Nicky had been the one deciding they went downstairs, and he too, was looking around.

"Ummm...," then he spotted it. "The cleaning cupboard."

Elise looked at the little door he was pointing at. She looked hesitant.

"Are you sure we'll fit?"

"Of course. It's much bigger than it looks actually."

Nicky stepped over Luke's backpack on the floor, and opened the door to the cleaning cupboard. He stepped in. There was as usual a big mess in there. Clothes, cleaning supplies, old things they had forgotten. There always seemed to be something new, every time you stepped in there.

Elise got in after Nicky, as he made himself comfortable under a shelf. On top of that shelf stood a box with two words written with black marker on it.

_"Old toys."_

Elise stepped around on the little area where she could place her feet. She pushed some things out of the way, and sat down.

"This is the best hiding place _ever._"

"I know," Nicky nodded. "Cramped, but good."

Elise looked around her at the few things she could define in the dark.

"What do you keep in here anyway?"

"Oh, you know... old clothes, the ironing board, some other cleaning supplies, and some old toys."

Nicky pointed to the box above him, and Elise looked up at it. She smiled.

"How many toys from Juliette are in there?"

Nicky couldn't help but curve the upper end of his lips into a smile.

"Many."

"Like... the police station Lego set?"

Nicky nodded.

"Theeee... toy cooking set?"

Again, Nicky nodded, and he snorted from the memory of that. That cooking set was the start of his passion for cooking and baking.

"Well, you don't need that anymore. Your food is _delicious._"

"Thank you. I do quite respect my cooking."

"You should."

Elise looked up at the toy box again.

"What about that bear?"

Nicky didn't nod this time. Although he knew it was in there, he hadn't thought about it in a _long_ time. It was like a distant, but happy memory. He nodded after a couple of seconds.

Elise just continued looking at the box in silence.

"Why did you stop playing with it anyway?"

Nicky looked up above him. He couldn't see the bear, nor the box. Only the wooden shelf.

"Well... We were fighting over who would get to make it talk next... then Dicky got hold of it. I think _Dawn_ bumped into him, and he dropped it down the stairs."

Elise listened, seemingly very interested.

"Then when we tried to press its belly, it didn't work anymore."

Elise raised her eyebrows.

"So it was just like... dead?" she smiled, and Nicky couldn't help but fall victim to her contagious grin.

The whole situation just turned into a funny storytelling.

"We... we did everything we could to make it talk again, but nothing worked!"

"What, did you like bang it with a hammer?"

Nicky laughed.

"Maybe not that extreme, but close. We smashed it on the table at least. I think Dicky even threw it down the stairs again."

Now Elise was laughing too.

"That seems like one stubborn bear. Like-" she put on the role of the bear, with a dark voice, and stiff posture. "_I will not talk."_

They both laughed for a few seconds. Lucky for them, the cleaning cupboard was good at closing out sounds.

"Yeah, and that-," Nicky took a break for laughing. "-that's when mom put it in there."

"What happened then?"

Not laughing, but still smiling, Nicky thought for a second.

"I don't know. We met Juliette a few more times, but then... you know what happened."

Both their smiles were gone.

"I miss her," Elise smiled, now in memory of Juliette. "Not because of the gifts of course, because of her."

"Me too," Nicky looked down, nodding.

Then all of a sudden:

"_You're my best friend._"

A light and happy, but suffocated voice came from somewhere. Not just any somewhere though. It came from above Nicky. From the box.

Nicky felt a terrified feeling spread through him as goosebumps formed, and his forehead got sweaty. He turned to Elise, who looked just as panicky.

"Did... did you do that?"

Elise shook her head, not taking her eyes off the box.

"I was hoping you did."

They looked at each other, flinched, and started doing everything in their power to open the cupboard door. Elise pushed it open, and almost dived out. Nicky followed her closely.

"Ha! Found you!" Dawn turned out to be in the living room.

She jumped around in a circle around her feet.

"Honestly, I would _never_ have looked in there," she calmed herself down and walked over to Nicky and Elise.

First now, she actually looked at them, rather than just celebrating her first find. She looked surprised, and confused.

"Hey, why are you so shaky?"

"The... The... You know...," Nicky's voice was just as shaky as him, as he pointed to the door.

Dawn crossed her arms.

"I know what?"

"The bear talked."

Dawn's eyes widened.

"_What_?"

She didn't know if she believed them, but judging on how they looked and acted, she leaned towards thinking it was true.

All of the others were hesitant about it as well. Anne even went in there and took the bear out. She pushed its belly, and nothing happened. Then everyone decided to just shove it under the carpet, and put the bear back where it had been for five years.

But it was safe to say that Nicky never set foot in that cleaning cupboard again...


	2. The Statue

**The statue**

**Takes place: A few years after season 4**

**Dawn-centric**

**March 20th: HollyHook, I noticed in your review that you were mildly disappointed with the ending. Therefore I changed things up a little, and developed it!**

* * *

Dawn scrolled down on her phone. She was surfing around on Faceshack, searching for a way to make money for a school trip. Each person in her high school class had to pay for themselves, but as always - Dawn was broke.

Even though she didn't have the money, she had to go on this trip. They were going to Six Flags, there was no way she could miss it!

Therefore, she had to get the cash herself. She had to make a lot of money. 110 dollars to be specific. Ninety for the ticket, and twenty to spend on souvenirs, clothes and food.

Dawn had already asked Tom, Anne, Jackie and Trish for a dollar about three times each, before Tom and Anne got suspicious, and wouldn't give any more money to her. Nicky, Ricky and Dicky refused too, as none of them got to go. This was their way of punishing Dawn for something out of her control.

Now Dawn was here, on the couch, scrolling down on Faceshack, looking for some way to make money. A one-time job in other words. Painting a wall, mowing a lawn, walking a dog. Just something so she could make the remaining 97 dollars.

She dragged her finger up her phone, and the screen followed it. Then there it was. The perfect job. Someone had posted a small article for a one-time job.

_Babysitter needed!_

_Location: Lake Avenue 204, Boulderly Hills_

_Who to babysit: Elias (8), Belle (7), Connor (4)_

_Pay for one time: 100 dollars_

_Time: 4 pm - 12 am on June 2nd_

_Please send a message with your name, age and babysitting experience if you're up for the job_

_Sincerely, Emma Gledhill_

This was perfect! 100 hundred dollars, that's a lot for such a simple job. But the family did live in Boulderly Hills, so they must be rich. Rich employers could lead to amazing things. Good food, amazing TV, and all those other sweet things.

Plus, she did have some experience watching kids.

That one time during Christmas break in Get Sporty, and some times she had babysat the neighbors toddler. How hard could it be babysitting three kids between four and eight?

If it was too hard she could just force her brothers to come there, and let them split the remaining three dollars she didn't need.

Dawn clicked the profile picture of a black-haired dark woman. The woman looked incredibly skinny and gorgeous for having had three kids. Dawn clicked the private message button, and started writing.

_Hey there, I'm Dawn Harper and I saw you needed a babysitter tomorrow night. I'm up for the job._

_I'm 16 years old and I live just about a mile away from your house._

_I've babysat my neighbor's kid many times, and I've also been in charge of the kids play area at my parents store, Tom's Get Sporty!_

_If you want me to, I would love to come babysit your __children._

_Sincerely, Dawn Harper._

Dawn pressed send, and the message went away from her screen. Now she just had to wait, and it turned out she didn't have to do it for long.

Just ten minutes later, when she had gone up to her room, her phone buzzed in her pocket. In a second she jerked it out, and saw the little notification from Faceshack. She immediately recognized Emma's profile picture, and the title of the notification read: "_Message from Emma_Gledhill82_"

Dawn felt something bubbling up inside her. She _needed_ this job. With her shaking finger, she pressed the notification. She held her breath as Faceshack opened, and loaded in the message.

_Hi Dawn!_

_I would gladly let you watch my kids while I go out on a date with my husband! You can come at 3:45 pm, so I can show you around, and tell you their rules._

_See you tomorrow!_

_Sincerely, Emma Gledhill._

* * *

Dawn turned into Boulderly Hills on her bike. She was _so_ excited to see the house, all the items only rich people could afford, and finally get those 100 dollars. Oh, and of course she was excited for meeting the kids as well... of course.

Excitement sparking like fireworks inside of her, she rode down Lake Avenue. The houses were big and modern, almost the size of mansions. They were built from various materials, raging from sandstone to wood.

204 was a diorite and sandstone house with two floors. It had a flat roof, and big windows all over the place.

Dawn slowed down as she rode up the driveway to the two garage doors. She spotted some other bikes over by the staircase up to the white double door. It only seemed reasonable that Dawn would park her bike there as well, so she did.

Then she walked up to the tall doors. They had windows going from a few inches from the top, to a few inches from the bottom. Dawn pressed the doorbell, and as the doorbell suite sound echoed through the air, she looked through the blurred windows. Black swirls were all over the window, making a beautiful pattern.

Dawn saw someone approaching the door, at a fast pace. The woman, Emma, from the profile picture on Faceshack opened. She smiled happily when she saw Dawn was there.

"Oh hi! You must be Dawn," she gestured for Dawn to come in, and she did.

The inside was just as luxury as the outside. Plywood floor, and white walls. They were inside a huge living room-hall. Three kids sat on the couch, over by the fireplace. From the back, they looked like mini replica's of their mother.

"Here they are! Elias, Belle and Connor."

Dawn smiled awkwardly, but kindly as the kids turned their heads.

"Hey! I'm Dawn."

The kids smiled too, but kept quiet.

"This is Elias, this is Belle, and this is Connor," Emma explained as she pointed to each kid.

Emma's husband entered the room.

"Hey there! Dawn, I suppose"

"Yeah," Dawn couldn't help but giggle to herself.

He seemed like a really cheery and funny guy.

"Okay," Emma took over again. "The kids go to bed around eight, eat dinner by six, and probably won't cause any trouble. You can feel free to watch TV, and let yourself eat anything from the fridge or pantry."

Dawn happily nodded.

"Should I show you around a bit?"

"Yes, please."

Emma showed Dawn all the essential parts of the big house. The kitchen, bathrooms, kids bedrooms, and many living rooms. After having been in the third living room, Emma realized how late it was. She quickly showed Dawn the door to the master bedroom.

"Here's the master's. Feel free to take a nap on the bed if you feel tired, we don't mind."

"I probably won't," she glanced into the room. "But I probably will watch some shows on that huge TV."

Both her and Emma laughed for a few seconds.

"Well, I have to leave now. Have fun with the kids, and thank you so much!"

Emma turned and left the little corridor.

"No problem, byyye!"

Dawn took a deep breath of the air, and she swore it felt more luxury than the air in her house. She walked into the master's room, eyes glued on the big flat-screen TV.

She could only imagine the amazing quality of the shows, and how she would be watching shows all night, as fast as the kids went to bed.

Then she turned around, and that's when she saw it. In the corner of the room stood an extremely creepy clown statue. It was white over it's whole body, and wearing a colorful costume. Its eyes were staring right at the TV, cold and empty.

Chills got sent down Dawn's spine just by the looks of it. Why did they have that statue, and _how in the world_ could they sleep with it standing there?

Dawn just shook if off, and went back to the kids.

* * *

A few hours later, Dawn laid on the big master's bed, watching Netflax on the big TV. The clock on the bottom of the screen showed 9:33 pm. About one hour ago, Dawn had put the kids to bed, and until now, she had been eating the delicious food from the Gledhill pantry.

They seriously had the _best_ tacos, so why wouldn't she eat it?

She got so full that she felt like her stomach was going to explode, and that's when she crashed on the double bed. It was extremely soft, and she felt like sank into the plethora of pillows.

She scrolled down into the science fiction part of Netflax, and her eyes immediately fell on a particular show. The Raincoat Academy. She was just about to click it when a sudden thought stopped her.

_This show was nothing that the kids should see. It was 16+, and they were around six._

Just to be safe, she picked up her phone, and dialed Emma's number. Three beeps echoed in her ear, before Emma's clear voice said '_Hel__lo_'.

"Hey, Emma. I'm so, so sorry if I'm interrupting your date, but I have a question."

"Oh, it's no problem. I told you I wouldn't mind if you called to ask something."

Dawn exhaled in relief.

"Oh good, cause there's this show that I'd like to watch. But it's sixteen plus, and I don't know if the kids will wake up, and like... hear or see it if they go and ask me something."

"No, don't worry about that. They're all heavy sleepers. Watch whatever you want to, Dawn."

"Thanks, Emma."

"Not a problem at all. Anything else?"

Dawn wasn't sure. She glanced over at the statue in the corner, and shuddered.

"Yeah, actually... Can I put a blanket or something over the clown statue in the corner? It's kinda freaking me out."

Emma went quiet. But not just a regular silence. She was _too_ silent. Dawn couldn't even hear her breathing. Something was wrong.

"Is everything okay?"

"Get the kids and go to the neighbors."

"What? Why?" Dawn could feel cold sweat rolling on her forehead.

She could hear Emma swallowing hard, and with a shaky voice, she replied:

"We don't have a clown statue."

Dawn's heart stopped for a few seconds, as she slowly turned her head to the left.

The clown "statue" didn't look any different than before. Still standing with its body turned towards the opposite wall. The only difference was that its eyes weren't looking at the TV anymore.

They were staring right at Dawn...

The clown didn't protest in any way when Dawn threw herself off the bed, and flew away into the kids' bedroom corridor. One by one, she woke the kids, who all seemed confused on why they were being waken up so late in the evening. Dawn didn't say anything, in fear of scaring the kids. Finally, she walked into Connor's room. She ran over to his bed and shook him awake.

"Connor, wake up," she whispered.

The little four-year-old twisted awake in his bed.

"We're going to the neighbors," Dawn revealed. This was also the moment when Elias and Belle found out about that.

"Why?" Belle asked.

"Because...," Dawn's mind went blank as she tried to come up with an excuse. "Your parents told me we have to go there, but they didn't say why."

Belle and Elias frowned a little, but didn't seem to mind. Dawn quickly picked Connor up, and started going out of the room. Elias and Belle followed. From the kids' corridor, there were two ways you could go. You could either turn right to go in the direction of the front door, or you could go left and go out the back.

Dawn started leading the gang to the right. She was just about to round a corner when she spotted something out of the corner of her eye. The clown. She snapped back in behind the corner, and held her arm out to stop Elias and Belle from walking forward.

"What's going on?" Elias whispered. He seemed to have noticed Dawn's weird manner and protective attitude. Luckily, he had also understood that he could not speak loudly.

"We...," Dawn whispered back. "We're gonna play a game. We have to go out the back, because there... there are monsters in the hall."

Dawn tried her best to smile and seem calm while coming up with a random game.

"Let's start out by hiding in this closet," she shoved the two older kids into an open closet.

Then she walked in herself with Connor in her arms. Slowly, slowly, she pulled the door closed. The door was one of those with a blurry window all over it. Dawn could see outside, but she doubted whether the clown outside would be able to see into the darkness. Then she spotted his foot round the corner.

"Look away from the door," she whispered as quietly as she could while still making sure the kids could hear her. "If you look at the door, you lose the game."

She put her hand on Connor's mouth to make sure he wouldn't say anything loudly. While the kids looked at the wall behind them, Dawn's eyes were glued on the blurry outlines of the clown in the corridor. She held her breath.

The clown walked down the corridor, but didn't seem to have any suspicion toward the closet. He didn't seem to be bearing any weapons.

"How long do we have to stare at the wall?" Belle asked. She too had got the memo that they had to whisper.

"Not much longer," Dawn mouthed. She wasn't sure Belle heard her.

Dawn's eyes were still glued to the clown as he passed the door. The sound of another door opening and closing was heard.

"Let's go now," Dawn told the kids. "We're gonna run to the back door, but try not to make any noise. Like, no noise at all."

The kids nodded understandingly. Dawn opened the door, and they started running as quietly as they could. Soon they reached the back door, and Dawn opened it easily. They went out into the backyard; a small area with a fence around it.

"Now we're gonna jump over the fence to avoid the monsters," Dawn instructed.

The group went over to the fence, and Dawn helped the kids get over to the other side.

"Go knock on the neighbors door," Dawn commanded.

Elias grabbed Connor's hand, and the three kids started walking around the house. Dawn swiftly jumped over the fence and caught up. The kids had reached the neighbor's door, and Belle knocked. A few seconds later, the door opened.

"Uh... hey there?" the puzzled neighbor looked at the group, confusion held in his eyebrows.

"Kids, hold your hands over your ears," Dawn told Elias, Belle and Connor. They followed her instructions.

Dawn turned to the neighbor.

"Listen, there's a clown inside their house. We don't know how he got in, or how long he's been there, but he's looking for us. I think their parents are on their way home, and I'm pretty sure they've called the police as well. Can you watch these kids while I talk to the parents?"

"Yeah... yeah, sure," the neighbor was surely in a small state of shock, but he was up to the task.

Dawn helped the kids into the house, then turned to the Gledhill house. Knowing who was now in there, she felt different about it than she did when she first saw it. Back then it looked big, modern and cool. Now it was just scary...

* * *

Emma and her husband showed up a few minutes later, and the police came along with them. They searched the house, but found no one in there. The clown had left while Dawn talked to the neighbors.

Now Dawn sat in her bed. She had the 100 dollars she was promised, but had been given an extra twenty because of the trouble. The whole scenario had played multiple times in her head, and by now she was extremely tired.

Nicky, Ricky and Dicky were already in bed since long ago, and so were Tom and Anne. Dawn decided that it was time for her to try to get some sleep as well. She turned the light off in her room, and walked over to the window to draw the curtains together.

She ended up not doing that, for what she saw outside made her freeze in place.

On the other side of the road stood the clown from the Gledhill house, waving slowly at her. For the second time that night, ice cold chills ran through Dawn's entire body. She couldn't move, and just felt completely terrified.

The clown hadn't been in the Gledhill house for the kids. He didn't want to harm Elias, Belle, Connor or their parents. He was there because of Dawn, and now he was at her house. Needless to say, Dawn did not get a lot of sleep that night...


	3. The Loose Chandelier

**The Loose Chandelier**

**Takes place: Season 3**

**Dicky-centric**

**Note: This is based on a real story that happened to my sixth grade teacher. He told us this story about two years ago, and now I decided to convert it to NRDD.**

* * *

The Harpers drove up the country road. They were on a road trip a few miles outside Boulder, on their third day of driving around. It had been a fun road trip so far. They had slept at some motels and hostels, and this day they were approaching a relative, who offered to let them stay over the night.

The sky outside the black minivan was slowly turning from violet to tangerine, making a beautiful ombre setting, and the nature around them was as green as ever.

Dicky sat in the middle of the backseat, along with Ricky. The only down-part of the road trip was sitting there, cramped in between everyone. Beside Dicky sat Nicky, listening to a podcast about hitchhiking and road trips gone wrong. Maybe not the wisest decision seeing their circumstances, but the thrill was fun at least. On Dicky's other side sat Ricky, with an open book in his lap. Dicky hadn't cared enough to check what the title was, but it was probably something boring - it was a book. Next to Ricky sat Dawn, looking out the window. She was almost falling asleep, and the only thing keeping her awake was the annoying sound of tires against gravel. Almost like rain falling on a window, but worse. Tom and Anne were in the front, Tom in the driving seat. They didn't say one more word than the kids. All six of them just sat in quiet, looking out the window (except for Ricky, who was reading).

It had been that way for almost half an hour. None of them were complaining, but they were surely bored. The quads all just felt like asking "_Are we there yet?_", but they knew it would be to no good. But then there it was. When they turned down onto another road, they saw the house in the distance. It was a big, dark scarlet painted house. The windows on it revealed there were two floors and an attic.

What did Anne's cousin need that much space for?

After another half minute, the Harper family pulled up next to a half broken down fence.

"So... Here we are," Anne opened the car door, and got out.

Her family followed her closely behind. Dawn and Ricky jumped out on the same side as their mother - the side facing the house.

Dicky followed right behind Nicky, who was having troubles untangling the earbuds he just got out of his ears and phone. Tom kept himself by the driver's door, locking the car. Nicky and Dicky placed themselves next to the older two quadruplets, and just watched the house.

"This is it?" Ricky sounded hesitant.

Anne nodded. The other quads totally understood Ricky's tone of voice when they looked up at the house. It looked like something out of a movie. Large, dark house, rusty roof, big grand double door, and a porch looking like it was going to fall apart any second.

As the family walked closer to the house, Dicky noticed a few stains on the house wall. They were only on the bottom of the wall though. Dicky thought it kind of looked like dry blood. But it could just as well be some old color peel from the scarlet house paint. After all, the house was clearly old. There was no way to tell what the stains were if you didn't go closer to them. Dicky didn't. He kept to his family, and followed them up the porch. There was no doorbell, so Anne knocked on the door.

_Knock, knock, knock_

The house kept as quiet as death for almost a whole minute. Anne knocked again a few times. Then they heard faint footsteps. Footsteps running down stairs, and through the hall. The door swung open.

A man, looking like he was about 45, was the one who opened. His hair was similar to Tom's, but he had a little more on top. He was wearing a baggy shirt and a pair of black jeans. When he first opened, he got a confused look on his face. It disappeared after he took a look on the family.

"Oh, Harpers. Come in."

The family walked into the dim lit hall. Anne's cousin disappeared into one of the many corridors away from the hall.

"What was up with him?" Dawn carefully kicked her shoe off.

"I don't know. Tristan's always been that way. At least from what I've seen of him."

Anne slightly observed her cousin, Tristan, as he walked right through the room, from one corridor to another. He was now carrying a pile of pearl white sheets.

"Nicholas, Richard, Dominic, Dawn, follow me."

The quads looked up at Anne, who nodded to them. They quickly got the last pieces of outside clothing off, and sprinted into the corridor Tristan went into.

It was just as dim lit and old as the exterior and hall. The floorboards creaked under their feet, and there was a lot of dust. Tristan obviously wasn't in this part of the house a lot. At all...

That fact shone through even more when they reached the end of the corridor. Tristan opened a door, and revealed a pretty big room with four beds. The beds were simple wooden beds, with nothing but mattresses on. At least until Tristan went over and put the sheets on.

First now the quads noticed that the sheets weren't perfectly clean either. There were some questionable stains and holes all over them, but Tristan didn't seem to care. He just put the sheets on each bed, while the quads silently watched him.

"Blankets and pillows are in there," he pointed to a closet door in the corner.

Without saying another word, Tristan disappeared through the door, and went off into the corridor, leaving the quads alone in the room.

Looking up, the quads realized it was even bigger than they thought, judging by how far away the ceiling was. The room probably reached up to the attic, so there was no room here on the second floor. Up there on the ceiling hung a huge chandelier, right above Dicky's bed. Why would Tristan have hung a chandelier in this room? He clearly barely went in here...

Dawn sighed.

"I honestly prefer the motel from the first night," she quickly ran over and got dibs on the cleanest bed.

It was in no way _clean_, but at least there were not as many gross stains and holes as on the rest. The boys walked over and sat down on the other three beds.

"At least we got one bed each. Unlike the hostel from last night," Ricky shuddered.

"I would rather share," Nicky looked down at one of the gross stains on the top of the sheet (who knew what that could be!?)

"I'm okay with it."

The others gave Dicky a grossed out look, before returning to their own things.

Dawn pulled out her phone, and Ricky pulled out his book. Dawn slammed her fist onto the mattress as she realized the WiFi was out. She threw her phone onto the end of the bed, and sat up.

Dicky was already doing that. Just sitting, doing nothing, and so was Nicky. They sat like that and just looked around for almost a few minutes.

Dawn brushed off some dust from her mattress, as Nicky shifted over on his bed to avoid a spider that had appeared on his left. Slowly but surely, he shifted over further and further, until he was off the bed, and sprinting over to Dicky.

They didn't do much more for the next few hours. And still not all the way until they went to bed. In total silence.

* * *

Judging by the darkness, it was definitely almost the middle of the night when Dicky woke up. He could still define some things, like his brothers and sisters in their beds. They were all clearly asleep.

Dawn slightly snored, Ricky was mumbling some sleep rhymes, and Nicky had drooled a bit on the pillow.

Dicky wanted to sleep too, but in the moment he felt wide awake. He _was_ too. He was just sitting on the bed, eyes wide open, only seeing darkness and a few close things.

Well, there was nothing else he could do but go back to sleep. It was probably around 12 and 1 am. If he did anything, he would wake up the others, they would get mad, fight and wake up Tom, Anne and Tristan. So that was not a possibility.

Dicky laid back down.

"Fall asleep, fall asleep, fall asleep," he mumbled to himself.

Then he got a sudden feeling. It was weird, but he just knew he had to do it. He needed to move the bed. Immediately. Not even _he_ knew why he felt he had to, but it was just there. You know those feelings you get sometimes, when your gut just tells you to do something, and you just need to do it?

Dicky quietly swung his legs down from the bed, and tip-toed over to the end of it. There, he grabbed it, and slowly started dragging it towards the other end of the room. It was just a couple of meters away, so it couldn't sound too much.

It didn't. The bed didn't make a _sound_ as he dragged it over, and pushed it to the wall.

Dicky suddenly felt tired. Now he wanted to sleep, so he jumped onto the bed, and snuggled himself up in the covers. He quickly fell asleep.

But not for long...

* * *

**_Crash_!**

An extremely loud noise woke the quads up. The four of them sat bolt right up in their beds, and looked around them in total panic-mode. It took them about two seconds to notice the chandelier on the floor. It lay between Nicky and Ricky's beds, right where Dicky's bed had stood...

"What the-...," Nicky removed the blanket from himself.

"How did it just... fall?" Dawn looked up at her brothers.

Her eyes looked like they were popping out of her head.

"And why are you over there?"

"I... I moved my bed."

"When?" Ricky asked as he got out of his bed, careful to not step on any of the broken chandelier pieces.

Dicky shrugged, and Ricky kept asking questions.

"Why did you move it?"

Dicky answered by shrugging again. A million thoughts were running through his head.

"You could have gotten crushed!" Nicky hadn't stepped onto the floor yet.

He was _not_ taking the risk of stepping on the glass pieces.

Dicky didn't move. Nicky was right. If he hadn't woken up and moved the bed, he would probably be dead by now. At least extremely injured. Those were some of the thoughts running through his head. But there was one major thought, that took over all of the others.

_How could his subconscious have known that this would happen?_

* * *

**Now I've gotten an important thing to tell you all.**

**I've written all my stories on my school laptop. All the way from the first chapter of **_The fantastic quadastrophy _**_sleepover,_ to this and _Throw fists, Get switched_.**

**And that's because... (drum roll)... five months ago, my computer broke, and I've not been able to play my favorite game of all time: The Sims 4.**

**At times I've been allowed to play on my little sister's computer, but only for like an hour.**

**Now though, we've ordered a new computer, which will arrive next week. This means I will probably spend every free minute of my day playing Sims 4. Therefore, I will not update as much.**

**I will not quit writing, that would be crazy. I will still update stories, write new stories, and keep on writing until I am totally out of ideas (which won't happen anytime soon).**

**I am Sims 4 crazy, and I need to play.**

**See ya soon!**


	4. Tooth Fairy

**Wow, I haven't uploaded anything to this collection for a while! Nice to be back with another oneshot to read with your lights off, and your door closed. When I said _See You Soon _at the end of the last oneshot in this collection, I didn't think "soon" would mean 3 months, but here we are!**

**I got this random idea while playing Minecraft (I wasn't doing anything closely related to this story, I was building a house), and I thought I'd just write it. I'll write a Ricky-centric oneshot as soon as I get an idea that fits him, but this one right here, will be Nicky-centric. Not only because he's my favorite, but also because it fits him better.**

* * *

**Tooth fairy**

**Takes place: 3 years before season 1 (they're 7 years old)**

**Nicky-centric**

* * *

"Wake up Nicky!" Dawn lisped through the opening between her front teeth.

She shook her brother by his ankle from her position halfway up the bunk bed ladder. Nicky woke up, and rolled over while rubbing his dazed eyes.

"What?" he mumbled.

"We're gonna check for a coin under my pillow," Dawn said excitedly as she climbed down.

Nicky suddenly felt more excited with those words, and happily threw his blanket off himself.

"She lost a tooth yesterday. Remember?" Ricky reminded him, although that had already caught up to his newly awoken mind.

Dawn smiled widely when Nicky got down to the floor, revealing the big gap between her teeth.

"You ready?" she asked, looking at her brothers.

They nodded intensively, and Dawn turned around. She tip-toed over to her bed, and carefully lifted her pillow. When she spotted a dollar under it, she snatched it out, and started taking tiny jumps of excitement.

"Yes! Yes! Yes!"

"One dollar richer," Ricky pointed out. Not that anyone was unaware of the fact, it was more just to say it out loud.

"Mom really stepped it up since last time," Dicky chuckled. "Remember when I just got 20 cent?"

Dawn and Ricky started laughing, but Nicky's face just showed confusion.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"That mom gave Dawn 80 cents more than Dicky when he lost a tooth," Ricky answered quickly.

"What do you mean _mom _gave Dawn...?" Nicky frowned.

"He means that mom gives us money when our teeth come out," Dawn said, still just looking at the dollar bill in her hand.

"It's not mom," Nicky said. "It's the tooth fairy."

The other three started giggling and chuckling.

"Mom _is _the tooth fairy," Dawn informed.

Nicky just snorted at the idea.

"Mom isn't a fairy," he crossed his arms.

"There is no fairy," Ricky turned around to walk back to his bed after stating the fact.

"Why do you think mom has that creepy little box with all the teeth we've lost in it?" Dicky asked.

"She said the tooth fairy gives the teeth back after a while," Nicky defended his side of the story, even though he was slightly questioning it.

"I'm gonna put this in my piggy bank," Dawn said, now tired of their conversation.

She turned around and walked with small steps over to her bunk, where she pulled out her piggy bank. As she opened it and put the dollar in, Nicky walked over and climbed up into his bunk again. He lay down, and started thinking about the quick conversation they just had.

Could what they said have been true? Was it just mom going in and taking their newly lost tooth, and replacing it with money? It seemed weird, but thinking about it, the concept of a fairy flying into your house to retrieve it was just as strange.

But Nicky still didn't want to believe it was Anne. That would just mean he was wrong, _and _that he'd been lied to by his mom.

An idea started to briskly form in his mind. An experiment, that would show who was right. He or the other quads. A smile started to form on his lips while he thought proudly of his idea. He poked the lose tooth he had in his mouth. It was a vital part of the plan. Keeping his mouth shut was the other part.

Now he just had to wait for the tooth to come out...

* * *

Only a couple of weeks went by before Nicky lost the lose tooth. Luckily he was alone in the boys room at the time. Dawn was at some soccer practice, and Ricky and Dicky were downstairs playing video games on the TV.

Nicky was just laying on the floor, drawing random things on papers, while swirling his tongue in circles around the tooth when it apparently came more lose than before. A single drip of blood fell down and landed on the paper, right on the face of a dog he drew. As the blood spread out a little, Nicky sat straight up, and his finger went right into his mouth, where he grabbed the tooth.

It barely took him any effort to pull it out, and when he did, he quickly closed his hand around it. Without any further action, he stood up and ran over to the bunk bed closest to the door. He climbed up, and crawled over to the pillow on all fours. Right as the door opened he put the bloody tooth under his pillow.

Ricky and Dicky stepped in, and their eyes immediately fell onto Nicky, who was right in the middle of action.

"What are you doing?" Ricky frowned.

"Uuuuh," Nicky sat still, quickly thinking up an excuse. "... I'm just making my bed."

He smiled, hoping he sounded and looked convincing as he fluffed up his pillow, and placed it neatly.

"Okay...," Dicky said, walking over to his and Dawn's bed, where he leaned onto the back of the bed.

Nicky averted his eyes from them and went back to his pillow.

Tomorrow morning he would get his answer. _Anne _or the _tooth fairy_. He wasn't going to tell Anne, Tom, or any of the other quads that he just lost a tooth. That way, Anne wouldn't know to place a dollar under his pillow. So if the tooth was gone when he woke up, he would have proved it. He was going to prove that the tooth fairy existed.

So before he went to sleep later that night, he made sure the bedroom window was open a couple of inches, so the tooth fairy could get in.

Needless to say, he could barely sleep with the excitement of finding the result of his little experiment. But after a little more than an hour of trying, he finally fell asleep.

* * *

The drowsiness wasn't even there when Nicky woke up. All he could feel was excitement. He lay still for a while, just listening to figure out if any of his siblings were awake. All he could hear was a bird chirping outside, the sound of someone switching sleeping position, and some breath-like snoring.

When he was sure no one was awake, he kicked the blanket off himself and sat up. His heart started accelerating, and an uncontrolled smile came to his face as he lifted the pillow. There was nothing under there. Only the small blood drips from when the tooth was laying there.

Nicky couldn't believe it. He had just proven the existence of the tooth fairy.

A smile awakened on his face as he climbed down the ladder to wake up the others. He jumped the last couple of steps and immediately shook Ricky awake.

"Ricky! Ricky!"

"What?" Ricky groaned.

"Wake up!"

Nicky ran across the room to where Dawn was sleeping, and pulled the blanket off her. She immediately woke up, and sighed in agony of being woken up on a Sunday. While she slurredly complained about it, Nicky climbed up to Dicky and yanked his foot.

"She exists!" he proclaimed as he climbed down the ladder again.

By now Ricky and Dawn were up on the floor, rubbing their red eyes.

"What?" Dawn let her arm flop down to her side.

"The tooth fairy," Nicky said.

Dawn and Ricky pulled their eyebrows together in confusion, and Dicky who had now reached the floor scratched his cheek confusedly. All of them just eyed Nicky, questioning his statement.

"Yeah look!" Nicky nodded vigorously. "I lost a tooth yesterday, but I didn't tell any of you, _or mom_, but I put it under my pillow, and now it's gone!"

The others just looked at him with half opened mouths as he gestured to them, his bed, and the gap between two of his teeth.

"Is that why the window is open?" Ricky lifted his arm to point at the window.

"Is that why it was so cold?" Dicky asked. "I thought it was the bag of ice cubes mom left in here for us yesterday"

Ricky scowled.

"That wouldn't make any sense. Ice in a bag can't make an entire room cold."

As they continued their ice cubes conversation, Nicky turned to look at the window. That's when his face dropped. Only with the ghost of a smile left on his face, he walked over to the big window.

Did he really open it this much? As he remembered it, he had only left it open a couple of inches. So why was it open to the maximum of the hinges?

"What are you doing, Nicky?" Dawn's voice interrupted him.

"Oh... no-.. nothing."

He turned away from the window and walked back to the others, still with the thought in mind.

"So you wanna get breakfast now that we're awake?" Ricky suggested.

"Yeah sure," Dawn said while Dicky and Nicky shrugged approvingly.

As they walked out of the room, Nicky couldn't avoid but give a last glance to the fully open window. When it was out of his sight, he and his siblings ran down the hall and the stairs. But as the older three continued into the kitchen, Nicky's eyes got stuck on a newspaper halfway through the living room. He couldn't help but stop in his tracks, and climb over the backrest of the sofa to sit down in it and read the front page.

It was a picture of an open window that caught his eyes. An open window just like in their room. But as he started reading the story behind the window picture, his heart only sped up. Beads of sweat started rolling down his face, and his eyes froze open as he read.

There was no tooth fairy.

_MOTHER WALKS IN ON MAN TAKING SLEEPING DAUGHTER'S TOOTH FROM UNDER HER PILLOW_

_Gabrielle Kaufman, 34, was just going to exchange her 6 year old daughter Diana's lost tooth with some money at 11pm last night, when she walked in on a grown man carefully lifting the young girl's pillow.  
-I just saw a man lifting my daughter's pillow. When I saw him, he jumped out the window, and the tooth wasn't left under Diana's pillow, says Gabrielle.  
After calming down a little Gabrielle remembers seeing the same man looking at Diana and her as Diana lost her tooth in the park.  
_

_Similar events have happened to other families, as many parents have dropped in their stories about their kids waking up with missing teeth from under their pillows. Some have even gotten their teeth pulled out, and other have had their finger nails removed._

_It is yet unknown who this man is, and why he is collecting children's teeth and nails. Keep reading The Boulder Daily Camera to find out the continuation of this case._

* * *

**This was an unusual chapter. At least I think so. But I liked it.**

**I chose Nicky for this story based on The Quadfather, and that he was the last one to stop believing in that as well.**

**Real creeps like the man in this chapter are what really scare me sometimes.**


	5. Happy

**I'm on a horror roll! May be because I've listened to 4 episodes of a podcast, where they talked about like 10 different Creepypastas. While listening to all of those episodes, my brain sparked an idea, and here it is.**

**This is definitely longer than any other chapter I've written in any story. To be honest, I'm pretty creeped out by my own idea. So let's get to it...**

**Happy**

**Takes Place: Season 4**

**All the quads-perspective**

* * *

_It all started that day in the park, and now we're sitting here, debating whether to leave the bathroom or not. We're running out of food, and all of us are getting sick constantly. And she's still knocking on the door six times every three hours... Every second hour, she scratches the window, even though we're on the second floor. While doing this, she tells us to come out and go to the park. It's driving us mad, and we don't know for how long we'll manage to stay inside. We don't know if, or when, we'll join her..._

* * *

"Out of the bus, children! It's time to do society a favour!" Ms. Nesbitt shouted as the bus stopped by the local park in Boulder.

Along with everyone else in their class, the Harper quads got out of their seats and started walking out of the boiling bus. They were certainly not the only ones who thought it needed air conditioning.

"Grab a pair of gloves, a plastic bag, and a grabber each!" Ms. Nesbitt continued, even though barely anyone was listening.

All of the fourteen-year-olds from Boulder Academy just grabbed what she told them to, and gathered around at the closest place where most people could sit down; By a few big rocks. Ms. Nesbitt and the rest of the volunteering school staff caught up with everyone, and Ms. Nesbitt continued her unnecessary rambling and explaining about the day.

"Welcome to the Boulder Academy 8th Grade Park Cleaning Day!"

"Way too long name" Ricky whispered to the other quads on the rock they had claimed.

"You will soon be divided into groups of four, and you'll be assigned an area of the park to clean," Ms. Nesbitt continued on.

"Of course we can't choose for ourselves," Dawn whisper-commented as she plucked some fluff off her shirt.

"Does everyone have their gloves?"

All of the bored school kids raised the hand they held their disposable gloves in.

"Plastic bags to put the trash in?"

Around twenty bags were held up.

"And grabbers?"

For a final time, the kids raised their equipment, just as unexcited as the other times. No one had volunteered for this except the teachers. People trashed the park, so what? It shouldn't be the responsibility of students to clean it up. Ms. Nesbitt started dividing them into groups, and no one listened except when they heard their name. It was a pretty usual routine around Ms. Nesbitt. She was excited about the most boring things, and didn't even notice that 90 percent of the students would rather sit in a classroom and learn more useless facts about wars that happened a hundred years ago.

"Dicky, Dawn, Nicky and Ricky, you take the picnic area surrounded by trees," Ms. Nesbitt said, getting the quads' attention _once _as she pointed to the secluded area.

It only took a quick look-around to see that they could leave immediately, without having to know every single group. So the quads got off the rock, and left towards the little tree grove. With just one glance back, Dicky could see that the second they left, some other kids occupied the rock.

"Of course we're grouped together," Dawn complained. "Why do they constantly put us together for things?"

"Because they _think _we work good together," Ricky answered.

Dawn snorted in disbelief.

"Have they even met us?"

"Of course they have. We're their students," Dicky explained, slightly chuckling at what he thought was Dawn being stupid.

But Dawn just rolled her eyes, and not in the amused way. In silence, they continued walking to the grove, with crossed arms and annoyance held in their eyebrows. They walked in through the gap between some trees, and were met with what they expected. The little area in the middle, cleared of trees, and instead filled with picnic tables at which no one _ever_ sat and ate. The glade was as clean as ever. No abandoned soda cans, plastic candy bags or left-over pieces of food. The only weird thing was a particular smell, which none of them could really distinguish. The best word to describe it would be... _old_.

"Well, this is great," Dawn sarcastically commented as they stepped in. "Not a single thing! You know what this means guys?"

The boys nodded, and pinched their lips.

"We're stuck here with nothing to do for the rest of the day," Nicky said as he sat down at one of the tables.

Ricky and Dicky joined him at that table, while Dawn just kept leaning against the one closest to them. As the group started a lack of speaking, she brought her left hand up to her face, and started inspecting her finger nails. The nail on her index finger had a chip missing, and there was some dirt under the nails on her middle and pinky finger.

When her nails got boring, she shifted her gaze from her hand to the boys' table. They didn't seem much more amused than her. Nicky was tapping his hand on the table, making an annoying sound. Ricky seemed to inspect each and every tree around them, and Dicky had his eyebrows pushed close together, lost in his thoughts. Then Dawn spotted something a little more interesting. She tilted her head slightly, attempting to get a close look at it.

"Hey guys, there's something under your table," she gestured a little with her hand towards the object in the grass.

Dicky snapped out of his trans-like state, Ricky turned his head to her, and Nicky bent down to pick up the thing under the table.

"What is it?" Ricky asked while Nicky slowly bent himself back up.

When Nicky got back up, he handed Ricky a _book_. Dawn quickly made her way over to their table, and Nicky and Dicky got closer to Ricky to get a better look at the book.

It was a small book, covered in a very dark brown, almost black, fake leather cover. Seven letters in gold spelled out a word on it. _Journal_. Ricky turned the book over, looking for a name, or just anything. There was nothing. Only the one word. Not a speck of dust, no morning dew drops, no nothing. He started to open it, just for it to be slammed shut by Dawn's hand.

"What are you doing? That's not yours!" she hissed.

"We're just gonna look _a little,_" Nicky said, sounding like he was suggesting it, but also defending himself, Dicky and Ricky.

"Haven't you learned anything about privacy since when you read _my _diary?" Dawn threw back at them.

"So you _don't _want to read it?" Ricky asked.

"Of course I do! But-"

"Then let's read it."

Before Dawn could protest anymore, Ricky opened the book. All he was met with was blank lined paper. All four quads' faces fell, as they were hoping for something more. Now it seemed like the owner of this journal had bought it, just to leave it in a secluded picnic area in the park. Ricky kept his hopes up though, and started flipping through the pages. Blank page after blank page. After about fifteen blank pages, he put his thumb to the side of the pages, and started letting them fall one by one, at a fast rate.

"Wait, wait, stop!" Dicky grabbed Ricky's wrist after about half the pages had fallen.

He took the book out of Ricky's hands, and went back a few pages. When he found what he was searching for, he put the book on the table. On this _one _page, in the middle of the book, stood two sentences, with a couple of lines between them.

_I just want to be Happy._

_I'm Happy._

"What the-" Dawn started after reading the lines.

"Why would someone write _only_ in the middle of a book?" Ricky asked, his eyes fixated on the few words.

"No idea," Nicky answered.

"At least they're happy," Dicky shrugged, trying to lighten the mood a little.

They proceeded to keep looking at the lines. Each one of them found themselves reading them over and over, trying to get some sense out of it.

"So...," Dawn disrupted. "What now?"

"We...," Nicky started, cutting himself off with a loud inhale, as he didn't know what to suggest.

"Maybe we can ask if we can leave early?" Dicky suggested.

"Good idea," Dawn immediately answered as she got off the table.

The boys also stood up, but Ricky remained put as the others started walking.

"But what do we do with the book?" he asked.

The other three stopped and turned around.

"We should take it home!" Dicky said, excitedly nodding.

Even though Dawn had protested against reading it earlier, she shrugged acceptingly. Based on the content of the journal, it didn't really seem like the owner cared about it a lot.

"Then let's go!" Nicky started getting impatient, and turned around.

He walked up quickly to the closest teacher, and tapped his shoulder.

"We're done cleaning our area," He pointed to the trees surrounding the picnic area. "Can we go home early?"

The teacher looked behind him, and following his glance, Nicky spotted Ms. Nesbitt.

"I don't know. Ms. Nesbitt wanted everyone to stay until everyone was finished."

"Come on, can't you just check our area out, and give us permission to leave? Ms. Nesbitt can't stop us if we're gone," Nicky tried to negotiate.

The teacher immediately got a little smile on his face.

"Sure."

He turned to walk into the little picnic area, an Nicky ran over to his siblings, who were talking to Mae and her group.

"The Nickgotiator has worked his magic," he stated when he reached them, only earning him confused and puzzled faces.

"Ummm... Okay, I'm just gonna _not _care about what you just said," Dawn said.

The group went back to the conversation they had before Nicky arrived with his strange comment.

"You're so lucky to get to go home _already_!" Mae said, jealousy and excitement mixed in her voice.

"Yeah, we found _nothing _over there," Dawn bragged a little, even though it wasn't any of her doing. "Just this _book._"

Mae tilted her head to read the words on the front. They could see her mouth "_journal_" before Dawn opened the book, and flipped to the page with the weird sentences written on it.

"Look at this."

"I just want to be happy. I am happy," Mae read, followed by a little laughing. "That's so weird!"

"You're free to leave Harpers."

The teacher came from behind, giving them a slight fright, which they shook off in a second.

"What you got there?" he asked when he spotted the book.

"Oh, just this weird book," Dawn answered, showing him the few lines.

He snorted at the sentences, before waving the Harper's off. They said bye to Mae, and made sure to walk out of sight of anyone in the park so Ms. Nesbitt wouldn't notice them. Their house was a walking-distance away from the park, so they started walking home. The journal, they brought home, without reading, or even _noticing _the sentence written in the middle of the very last page of the book.

_Getting Happy was a mistake._

* * *

_When everyone started telling us the same thing, we all got pretty freaked out. Reading the same line in the journal didn't make things better. She's still saying it now. She keeps telling us the same line as everyone's said the last week. We can barely take it anymore_

* * *

It got so much worse so quickly. At first, Dicky and Ricky smelt that particular smell they had smelt in the glade at the house. Then Dawn lost the book, only to find it right on the kitchen table, where she had definitely not left it. None of the quads had expected it to take such a sharp turn for the worse.

Nicky and Dicky were just sitting in their geography class. The class they had with the teacher that let them go early, Mr. Hynes. It had been a regular boring day. Three days had passed since they found the journal. It was a Friday, and they were on their last period of the day. So when the bell rang, the daily relief of finally getting to go home, and do whatever you'd been longing to the whole day came.

All the students got up, and just as Dicky and Nicky were about to leave with the others, Mr. Hynes called their names.

"Nicky! Dicky! Could you stay for a minute?"

Both boys stopped and turned around.

"What bad things have we done this week?" Dicky leaned closer to Nicky to whisper.

Nicky just shrugged, and they walked up to Mr. Hynes' desk.

"You remember park cleaning day?" Mr. Hynes asked.

The boys nodded slowly, their eyes not focusing on anything as they went over that day in their minds.

"Well, when I went to check if you cleaned everything, I found something left in there," the teacher continued. "You should check it out later. I'm sure it will make you happy."

The boys both pulled their eyebrows together, a little confused about his statement. If he found something there, why didn't he tell them immediately?

"I can't," Nicky simply answered. "I'm helping mom bake for her friend's birthday party this weekend."

"Then we'll go without you," Dicky said, causing Nicky to frown at him a little.

Nicky shook his head slightly, and looked back at Mr. Hynes.

"Anything else?" he asked, leaning forward a little.

"No. See you tomorrow boys."

And with that, Nicky and Dicky turned around and left. Immediately when they got outside, they went over to Dawn and Ricky, who were waiting for the bus by a lamppost.

"What took you so long?" Dawn asked the second they were close enough to hear her.

"Mr. Hynes wanted to talk to us," Nicky answered.

"He told us to go back to the park to check something out in the picnic area," Dicky said with a little smile.

"That's gonna have to wait. I have a test to study for," Ricky said distantly (probably the test on his mind).

"Yeah, I have to practice my solo for the glee club," Dawn dismissed the offer as well.

Little did the quads know how much they did themselves a favor.

* * *

"If you love me, love me, love me like you say...," Dawn sang quietly to herself as she picked her clothes from yesterday off the floor. "Darling, tell me all the ways...," she discreetly danced over to the other side of the room, where she had dumped her pajamas.

"Tell me all the-"

She flinched, and dropped a couple of items of clothing when her phone's ring tone started playing. Since she didn't _want _to keep doing her laundry, she dropped the clothes on the floor, and threw herself onto the bed, where she lay on her stomach with her shins kicked in the air. She grabbed the phone and casually pressed the green receiver.

"Hey Mae!"

"Hey!" Said Mae from the other side of the phone.

"Why are you calling?" Dawn started twirling a strand of her hair as she listened to Mae's answer with a smile on her face.

"Because there's something really cool you need to see!" Mae excitedly answered.

"What?"

"Mr. Hynes told me to go to the park to check something out, and I was bored, so I did. And it's for real so cool!"

"What is it?" Dawn asked, getting increasingly more curious with every word.

"You have to see for yourself. But I can assure you, it will make you happy!"

The two girls paused for a few seconds, where they just giggled together.

"What did it say in that book now again?" Mae asked suddenly.

"Something about being happy," Dawn shrugged. "I don't really know," she added when she remembered Mae couldn't see her shrug. "Let me check."

She scooted herself to the side of her bed where she swiftly got out of it, and tip-toed over to her desk to grab the book. Just as she had done many times, she flipped through the pages to get to the middle. Unexpectedly, she had to stop only a couple of pages before the happy-phrases. A confused and concerned wrinkle appeared between her brows as she looked at the page. She was 100% sure it was blank earlier.

"I'm sorry Mae, I have to go," without even saying bye, Dawn hung up the phone.

With the book in her hand, she stormed out of the room, and slammed the door to the boys' room open. They were all sitting on their respective beds, now looking at her with confused faces. Dawn's face wasn't confused anymore though. It just looked annoyed.

"Who wrote this?" she aggressively pointed to the new line written on the page that had been blank before.

_Go back to the park. There's something you need to see. It will make you Happy._

Dawn stared at the boys with raised eyebrows, lips pushed together, and fiery eyes.

"Not me," all three boys answered.

Their facial expressions were definitely telling Dawn they were truthful, but she immediately protested anyway. Of course one of them did it. Who else? A ghost? But after a couple of minutes of arguing, Ricky shouted out the breaking line.

"Just check the handwriting!"

Dawn furiously started flipping the pages, almost exploding when none of the boys would own up to it. When she reached the middle page, her entire face fell. It was unavoidable for her to not flip back the pages, and look at the new line. All color left her face as she looked back at the first lines, and lowered the book.

It was the same handwriting. No question about it.

* * *

_At first it was just people we knew. They told us to go to the park in person, and encouraged us to do so. Then it got worse. Everyone started saying it. Everyone said the same thing. We didn't know what to do. We still don't. All we do is sit around, listening to her knocking, scratching, tapping and talking._

* * *

The rest of the Friday was horrible. After they found the new line, none of the quads really knew what to do. Dawn called Sadie for comfort, only to abruptly hang up when Sadie's voice lost all emotion, and told her to go to the park, because it would make her happy.

Nicky went to the kitchen to make some emergency chocolate chip cookies, but ended up abandoning the batter when he could swear Anne told him to go to the park, even though she only came to say goodbye. She and Tom were leaving for the weekend, to visit Anne's friend in Denver.

It got even worse when Ricky and Dicky sat down on the couch to watch some television. It worked to take their minds off the current strange circumstances, until one of the characters on the show turned to the camera and said "_You should go to the park quads. It will make you happy_"

And with those events, what was supposed to be a fun weekend without parents turned into their worst nightmare. When they shared their experiences from earlier, all of them were sure about one thing.

They were not going to the park.

This was not normal. If Mr. Hynes would have seen something in there, why didn't he tell them back on Tuesday? Why did he tell Mae? Why did all four quads hear random people hear them say that phrase?

_Go to the park. It will make you Happy._

Then on Saturday morning, hell broke lose.

The quads hadn't talked to anyone other than each other since everyone started saying that phrase. They hadn't watched anything on TV, any YouTube videos, or anything involved with people. They secluded themselves, because they knew they would just hear people telling them to go to the park.

The last thing they were going to do was go to the park.

The boys kept themselves in their room most of the time, while Dawn was the leader in the situation. Ricky had of course protested against this, but lost his chances since Dawn was way more willing to leave her room. She was now the one to keep guard, and make sure no one who could talk in any way could get to them.

Of course it wasn't easy; for any of them. They were in constant fear of something they didn't even know what it was. Afraid of something they weren't even sure existed. They were also running out of options on things to do.

Dawn lay on the couch, the mysterious journal in her hands. Just as she had done the first time she saw it, she read the lines they had over and over. Everything was about being "happy". Confused and bored, she kept flipping through the pages. She had no idea what the meaning behind this was. They were pretty basic phrases, but she had a deep gut feeling they were not. Her gut feeling told her they were everything but someone talking about being genuinely happy. This was about reading between the lines.

All of a sudden, a thought hit her head from nowhere. A random instinctive thought led her to start flipping rapidly, all the way until the end. None of them had ever flipped through the entire thing. They weren't sure why they hadn't. They had just stopped after the middle page.

So there on the couch, Dawn felt shivers run through her entire body when she found the line on the last page.

_Getting Happy was a mistake._

Suddenly a lot of things came to her. All the questions from earlier, but now accompanied with a new one. A new question about something that she just noticed now, while reading that line.

Why was 'happy' spelled with a capital H?

"Guys!" Dawn shouted, great terror building up in her voice. The next second there was a knock on the door.

You know that thing when you know almost immediately who's outside the door just by the way they knock? Dawn didn't feel that. This knock was a slow one. Someone putting their hand to the door carefully, but with force. Dawn stood up as the second knock rolled in. She tip-toed over to the windows beside the door, and moved the curtain just enough to peek through, at the same time as the third knock was heard.

No one was out there. Not even a trace of someone having been there.

The boys came running down the stairs, and while Ricky and Dicky ran the whole way down to Dawn, Nicky froze in the middle.

"What are you doing?" Dicky asked when he spotted Dawn staring out at the porch.

Dawn snapped out of the stare, and turned towards the others.

"I need to both show, and tell you something."

She rushed over to the couch where she had left the book. In a short second, she opened it on the last page, and turned the page towards the boys. Dicky and Ricky's eyes widened, and they got very pale as they read it.

"Notice how _happy _is spelled with a capital H?" Dawn flipped back to the middle. "It's that way on every line."

"Why?" Ricky asked, inspecting the letters.

"I don't know," Dawn explained "I just heard knocks on the door, but no one's outside."

The three of them turned to look at the door.

"Dawn," Nicky suddenly firmly said. "Stop."

Dawn, Ricky and Dicky's heads turned towards Nicky on the stairs instead. He was more pale than any of them in the moment. His whole body was shaking and veins were pulsing in his neck. He was almost crying. But the most frightening thing was that his eyes were frozen open, and glued to something in the kitchen.

The older three didn't want to see what he was so horribly scared of, but they knew they had no other option than to join Nicky on the staircase. So they did, and when they saw what he was looking at, they caught all the fear symptoms he had.

The door to the backyard was wide open, swinging lightly.

"Stop it," Nicky repeated.

"I-" Dawn began to stammer. "Th-that's not me."

All four quads exchanged a quick horrified glance, and they all knew what they needed to do in the moment. They ran into the kitchen, and while Dicky slammed the door, the others gathered any food they could. Then they ran, faster than they had ever run before, upstairs, and locked themselves in the bathroom.

* * *

_Locking ourselves in here was definitely the right thing to do, but I don't want to be here anymore. I want to get out of here, but I know it's not safe. If we go outside, who knows what she'll do to us..._

* * *

Dawn slammed the bathroom door behind her and the boys, and locked it before putting her back against it. All four quads felt like someone was pulling their chests tightly together, until the point where they could barely breathe, while their hearts beat at the speed of light. Ricky started pacing forward and back across the tiled floor, contemplating the situation. Dicky sat down on the floor, and buried his face in his knees, gagging and almost throwing up, while Nicky almost peed himself while he let himself slide down to the floor with his back to the wall, tears streaming from his face. Dawn kept her back to the door as pressure, like someone was about to break in. Or _something_... was about to break in.

None of them knew what was going on, but they knew what had started it. The journal they found in the park. It was definitely not a normal journal. After they found and read that, everything had gone terribly wrong.

All of them stayed quiet for a while as Dawn calmed her breath and heart rate, Ricky comprehended the situation, Dicky's gagging got less and less constant, and Nicky tried to stop crying. When they were all considerably calmer, Dawn called a floor quaddle on the mat. Dicky and Nicky who were already on the floor just pushed themselves over there as Dawn and Ricky sat down on the mat.

"I think we all know why this is happening," Dawn started of, and got nods from all the boys as an answer.

"The journal," Ricky added, just to confirm it.

Dawn nodded.

"But why?"

"I've got a theory," Ricky stated. "Notice how we showed Mr. Hynes and Mae first? Then they told us to go there. I think Mr. Hynes went back in there after he read the book, and... _something _happened to him. He told Mae, who had also read the book, and she went there, and the same something happened to her."

"Where are you going with this?" Dicky asked, tired of Ricky's long explanation

"I mean that whatever is _in this book _is trying to get us to come to the park," Ricky revealed, with a face that told every part of the statement. "It's doing anything in it's power to get us to come there. That's why we heard mom, Sadie and those TV characters say it."

The other three quads looked away at random objects in the bathroom, just to have a moment to get everything into their heads. Then Ricky added the thing that made the whole story so much worse.

"And I think that the thing from the book... it's in our house."

That was it. Dicky gagged again, Dawn's face dropped, and Nicky buried his emotions in his knees.

"What do we do?" Dawn asked, desperate for some kind of answer. "Why does this thing want us in the park so bad?"

Then... six knocks on the door. The quads' attention was immediately turned towards it, and the worst sick feeling crept up inside of them. So bad they nearly threw up on the floor.

"_Why won't you come out quads?_"

A voice echoed through the room. The voice of a girl, sounding to be around their age. She was calm and happy, and seemed to be in real confusion to why they wouldn't go to the park already. The quads had never heard that voice before, but there was something about it that was so extremely unsettling that a sensation of fear and panic spread through their bodies.

That phrase crossed the line. Dicky slid himself over to the toilet immediately, and threw up. Ricky did the same, but into the bathtub instead, and Nicky couldn't keep himself from wetting himself. Dawn just simply mumbled _"Oh, fuck_ no" to herself, before the room started spinning violently, and she soon fell back onto the floor, unconscious.

"_You need to go to the park. It will make you happy, I promise!_" The girl outside the bathroom door cheerfully told them.

* * *

_The first time was the worst. The very worst fear symptoms hit each of us. We're used to it now. Some of us can't keep ourselves from crying at each knock, but we at least know that it's going to happen, and when. And we do know that we're keeping put. We're doing everything we can to not give into her temptation. We're gonna stay in this bathroom. Even though it may kill us..._

* * *

It continued the same way for the quads for the following 24 hours. Knocks, scratches on the window, and the constant phrases coming along with it, from the same girl with the same sweet voice.

_"Why won't you come out?"_

_"You have to come out of the bathroom"_

_"You can't barricade yourselves forever"_

_"Go to the park, quads. It will make you happy!"_

It was kind of the sweet and happy voice that made the situation even scarier, and even worse.

None of the quads could explain the feelings they were having, closed in the bathroom, haunted by whatever it was talking to them. They had moved all the furniture in the room to barricade the door, and spent most of their time on the floor, talking, crying, eating the few foods they had...

All of them had gotten sick at least once. Both from the fear, and the horrible smell of vomit that filled the room. It wasn't the only smell though. Slightly, every time the girl came back to knock or scratch, they could smell that particular smell from the picnic area in the park. The food they had brought wasn't filling. It was mostly just crackers, and a few fruits, but they couldn't get more. Their lives were in such horrible conditions that they had to share one banana between the four of them for lunch. Half of the time they would throw it up a few minutes later when the girl came back. But after a little more than a day of it, they knew one thing for sure.

She wasn't giving up...

By keeping check on his wristwatch, Ricky realized that she came every three hours to knock on the door, and every second hour, she scratched the window. Of course she did all this while repeating those phrases in a happy voice. Between the times she would come, the quads were left alone to talk.

It was a usual knock hour, 48 hours after they locked themselves in there. Tom and Anne should have been home by now, but they weren't. The quads all had a sickening gut feeling that they were at the park. The last place they should be at.

_Knock knock knock... knock knock knock_

"_If you come out, you'll be so happy!"_

Ricky listened to it, checking if the girl still kept to the usual time schedule. Dicky lay on the mat on the floor, thinking about who knows what. Dawn had placed herself on the stool in front of the door, adding extra pressure if the girl was to try and break in, and Nicky was curled up in the corner, hands over his ears, and his eyes squeezed shut.

This knock time was one of the times where the knocking and scratching fell almost at the same time. A few minutes after the six knocks came the scratches on the second floor window. It was a real mystery how the girl managed to do it, seeing as she would have to either fly or use a ladder to reach.

"_Why are you still in there quads? Don't you want to be happy?_" the girl said, burying a laugh under her words, like she thought their decision was so stupid she could laugh about it.

A few more scratches, and she was gone. The quads waited a few minutes before beginning to talk again, just to be completely sure she wasn't still there.

"I'm gonna go insane," Dawn sighed loudly and leaned back onto the cupboard behind her.

"I can't take this anymore," Nicky cried from his corner.

"You have to," Ricky reminded, not being close to as calm as he sounded.

Nicky slowly nodded, and a single tear rolled down his face.

"How much longer do we have to stay in here?" Dicky asked, getting impatient with their horrible circumstances.

But then...

_Knock knock knock... knock knock_ knock

"_You have to come out, quads. Can't stay in there forever."_

The quads' eyes immediately froze open, and all the color left their faces. Without any leading conversation, they gathered on the mat, close enough to each other that they barely had to whisper to be heard.

"It has _not _been three hours yet... right?" Dawn mouthed.

"Three _minutes,_" Ricky disclosed.

"Then why is she here already?" Dicky asked quietly.

Dawn glanced up at the door. She gulped as her eyes widened to even bigger than before.

"She's getting impatient... She wants us to come out... right now."

The next few sounds they heard led to them making a horrifying discovery.

_Six knocks on the door... six scratches on the window... at the same time._

It made everything a hundred times worse. It was a discovery that led the quads to all press themselves against the only empty corner, tight together. They were all sweating excessively, and their hearts and breaths were quicker than ever. The girl outside had just gotten a hundred times worse.

Because she wasn't alone...

With just a few scratches and knocks, "_she_" turned into "_they_". Whoever, or _whatever _they were, really wanted bad for the quads, as the scratching and knocking got more and more intense by the second. They didn't stop. They kept knocking, and kept scratching, and soon came knocks from the wall behind them too.

This was it...

* * *

_They're not stopping until they get in here. We know that now. They're gonna keep knocking, scratching, and saying the phrases in sync until they break through the window, wall and barrier in front of the door. We don't know what they want, or what has happened to them. We don't know what Getting Happy means. We don't know if that book was haunted or something, but it all started with it. We don't know what these things outside are, but we have a feeling they're something demonic, and we don't know what will happen to us when they get in. We only know one thing._

_They **will** get in..._

* * *

**So? What did you think of that? Did I creep you out?**

**Now the rules go that because I wrote a hella long chapter, you have to respond with a long review. (Those aren't the rules, just what I want everyone to do).**

**Leave _everything _you thought of in a review. Did any specific sentences send chills down your spine? Did it turn out how you thought, or wanted?  
What would _you _do in this situation?**


	6. They're Coming

**It's been quite a while (*cough* seven months *cough*), but here I am, back again with a new horror oneshot!**

**I am here because today, March 20th, it was one year since I uploaded my first story on this FanFiction site! Confetti and cake for everyone!**

**Review Responses**

_**HollyHook - **_**I'm delighted I freaked you out, and happy you liked the oneshot, and that it was long. Technically, you can go to the park. Just make sure you don't read any suspicious journals on the ground! But because you asked me to: HOLLY, DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES GO TO THE PARK!**

**_VeronicaWeasley _**\- **Terrifying is the best type of terrifying. I also had a vivid image of the girl, including her voice, but as we never got to actually ****_see_**** her, I couldn't write about what she looks like.  
Stupid quads. Not listening to Arthur Weasley. *Huff*, what are they even doing?  
That was the meaning of the first paragraph. Freak everyone out immediately! And tempt them to read.  
Oh boy it was that bad! I kept looking over my shoulder as I wrote it, just to make sure there were no strange journals, no creepy girls, and no open windows or doors.**

**Now for the story!**

* * *

**They're Coming**

**Takes Place: When the quads are grown up.**

**Dicky-centric.**

**This story (like the other Dicky-centric) is based on a story that my 6th grade teacher told me. Except this story didn't happen to him, it happened to his grandfather.**

* * *

After finishing school, Dicky was very unsure where to take his life. For so many years, it had been the norm to wake up early and go to school, but now that was over. Dicky was clueless on where to take his life. He was stuck at a figurative fork in the road. Dawn had chose to pursue singing, Ricky had gotten good enough grades to get a job already, and Nicky turned his part time job at a restaurant into a full time job. This left pressure on Dicky to get a job as well. The problem was that he had no idea where to go.

That was until his college friend Phil suggested he joined him at his job

Phil worked as a wood chopper at the moment, in a forest close to a large lake. Desperate for something to do, Dicky accepted the offer. The next week, he accompanied Phil to his job. He met the group of seven other workers, and got shown how to properly chop wood. Over time, he actually got really into it, and even started renting a small cabin in the same forest as he worked in. His then-girlfriend Kathleen decided to also move in with him there.

Dicky, Phil and Phil's two friends Mark and Eric formed a really close knit group. All day they made jokes and laughed through their days. The other workers were of course also nice and respectable, but they were nothing more than normal colleagues. Well... all of them except for one... David was strange. He always looked over his shoulder into the forest, and would flinch if you touched him without warning. Everyone brushed his weird behavior of as paranoia, and didn't really care.

Until one night, when Dicky's mind was changed...

Dicky and Kathleen were asleep in their beds. The night was quiet and dark. The curtains were pulled in front of the windows, making the bedroom in the cabin even darker. In other words, it seemed like a completely normal night. But then...

_Knock knock knock knock._

The sound of someone knocking on the front door was heard in the cabin. It did not wake the deep asleep Dicky, but soon he was awoken by Kathleen, who was a light sleeper. Dicky rolled over to face her, making a tired sound.

"What do you want, Babe?" he groaned.

"Someone's at the door," Kathleen tiredly replied. "Can't imagine why anyone would be out here to reach me at this time. It must be for you."

"I can't imagine why _anyone_ would be out at this time," Dicky said, yawning.

Unwillingly and unsmoothly, he got out of the bed, walked over to the door and grabbed his bathrobe, which was hanging on a hook on the door. He put it on himself as he walked out to the hall. Through the blurry window on the door, you could just make out the outlines of a man in the dark. Dicky sighed to get some tiredness out before opening the door.

David stood outside. His eyes were bloodshot and wide open. The veins in his neck were so visible so you could see their color. Sweat was seen clearly all over him, and he was shaking lightly. As usual, he was looking over his shoulder a lot, but this night it was worse than normal. Every two seconds his head snapped in a new direction.

"Da-... David?" Dicky asked, puzzled. "What are you doing here?"

"Dicky!" David said, his voice trembling. "You gotta help me. Quickly. They're coming."

None of what David said made sense to Dicky. If he was confused before, it was nothing compared to now.

"What? _Who's_ coming?" he asked.

"_They're_ coming!" David hissed. He seemed to be making an effort not to raise his voice.

Kathleen came walking down the hall, tying her bathrobe around her waist.

"What's going on here?" she asked.

"You gotta help me. They're coming for me, Kat!" David said with his shaky voice.

While Dicky still stood confused, Kathleen was way better at handling the situation.

"No one's coming for you, David," she said, trying to comfort him. "These woods are safe. No one's out here except us."

She continued calming David down for a few minutes, then she offered that she and Dicky walked him to his rented cabin half a mile from theirs. Dicky did not protest, and the three of them walked down to David's house. On the way back, Dicky couldn't deny that he also looked over his shoulder a bit, just to be safe. But of course, there was nothing there.

* * *

The next day everything was like normal. Kathleen left the cabin early to drive into town for her internship shift, Dicky went to work and chopped wood. It was inevitable to notice that David seemed more nervous than normal. Dicky told Phil, Mark and Eric what happened that night, and they were definitely confused as well. Though as the group did with most issues, they laughed it off.

Only a few nights later, Dicky was reminded of it. This instance was pretty much the same as the last one. In the middle of the night, there was a knock on the door. Dicky and Kathleen went to open it, and found David outside. He told them again that "_they're coming_". Just as last time, the couple walked David home. On the way home this time, they felt a little uneasy though.

"Are you sure he's fine?" Kathleen asked.

"I told you," Dicky reassured, "he's always like this."

"Has he ever talked about '_them_' before?" Kathleen continued questioning.

Dicky stayed quiet. To answer his girlfriend, he simply shook his head.

* * *

For the next few weeks, David kept coming in the middle of the night. Every time, he said the same thing.

"_They're coming."_

Neither Dicky nor Kathleen nor any of the other wood choppers knew what he meant with they. They had no idea who 'they' were, and they did not know why David seemed so afraid of them.

Soon the visits got more frequent. It went from twice a week to every other night. It didn't take long before David came every night, begging for help, and telling them that; "_they're coming_".

Dicky and Kathleen talked to the police about it one day, but they told him that David was probably just paranoid about something that was coming up in his life. They needed something more than his condition to make a visit. Little did they know what would happen just a few days later.

* * *

Dicky wake up from his alarm clock ringing. He threw his hand out to stop his phone from buzzing, and then he sat up. Kathleen had of course woken up by then too. It took them a few moments to realize that David had not come knocking in the night.

"Do you think he's okay?" Kathleen asked, a worried tone to her voice.

"Yeah...," Dicky nodded slowly. He was unsure with his own answer. "Maybe it's like the police said. Something was coming up in his life, and now it's happened. He's... he's fine."

They both pretended like they were over that now, and they continued their day as normal. Both of them knew that they were a little concerned though.

Later, Dicky went to work. He was greeted by Phil, Mark and Eric as usual, but quickly noticed something was off. David was not there. His wood chopping station was empty. Dicky had no hesitation to tell his friends that David had not came that night. They were all confused and a bit weirded out, as that had become a usual event by now. To make themselves believe that it was nothing, they said that he was just sick that day. _It happens, people get sick, it's inevitable._

David didn't show up the next day either. _He was still sick_.

Next day, still no David. _Still sick._

A week passed, and no one had seen David.

"Maybe we should visit him?" Mark suggested.

"Sure, let's go after work," Phil agreed.

Dicky and Eric agreed as well. Later that day, they left in the direction of David's house instead of separating to go to their own homes. They walked the quarter of an hour walk there, but were not met with what they expected.

When they reached David's house, they noticed something was off immediately. The way they told was that the front door to his house was wide open. It looked as if he had opened the door, left it open and walked away without returning. After some hesitation, the group walked into the house. It had almost the same vibe. Everything looked untouched. The only mildly strange thing was that it looked like David had gotten out of his bed in a hurry - the covers were a mess on the bed. The group also noticed a chair that had fallen over right next to the corridor down to the front door.

One thing was clear with the house. David was not there.

The four men decided to go on a quick manhunt in the forest. So they started walking, running or sprinting around, shouting David's name. They got no response anywhere. Soon they had searched through pretty much the whole forest, but had found nothing. They were just about to call the other workers to tell them when Phil got an idea.

"Hey, what about the boathouse down by the lake?"

The group hastily got themselves down to the lake. The boathouse was a small, red house right by the shore. It only had room for one boat inside, seeing as not many people sailed on this lake. No one used the boathouse though.

Dicky led the group to the opening, where you usually would sail your boat in. There was a door right on the side, where you could go inside on a small path and secure your boat, or leave stuff for storage. The group did not use that door however. They just had to look in, so they went to the big opening to look inside. What they saw in there truly shocked them to the core...

The boathouse was completely empty. There were no storage crates, no old furniture, no nothing. Only one single item was inside the boathouse. The image of it would surely never be able to leave the minds of the men outside, and they knew that just by a glance of it.

From a rope in the roof hung David's dead body, right over the water where you would put your boat. It was clear he had been hung, and Dicky had a strong feeling it happened a week ago, the night when David did not show up at the house.

While the sight of the body hanging from the ceiling definitely was frightening enough, there was one thing that almost freaked everyone out even more. There was nothing in there with which David could have hung himself. He was just hanging from the ceiling.

It was clear he had not done this on his own...

* * *

**I have shivers over my body for two reasons.**

**1: I'm cold.**

**2: I'm freaking myself out with my own writing.**

**I'm gonna tell you once again that I did not come up with this story. My teacher told me this story in 6th grade, and I decided to write it on here. This leaves me with so many questions though. The main one being "_who are 'they'?". _I have no idea what to make of it, so if you have any idea who 'they' are, write it in a review.**

**You might also have noticed that it was written a bit weird. In some parts it was very detailed, while in some it was just point-blank. It's meant to be that way. It's not me being sloppy with my writing. Some things needed to be in more detail, while some were fine just being plain.**

**Now I'm gonna watch some funny Youtube videos to take my mind off this.**


End file.
